All That and a Bag of Mail: SEC Media Days 2012 Arrives

Posted by Clay Travis

So the Friday mailbag is now the Monday mailbag. This means you get two mailbags this week. I know, I know, try to contain your excitement.

We've had a lot of awkward fan photos, but so far Georgia fans have escaped ridicule. That changed this week when a brawl broke out a little league game. (No Kristen Saban was not involved). What was the impetus for the brawl? One dad, an Auburn fan, was playing "All I Do Is Win" too loudly.

This email got me wondering how EA Sports ranked all the SEC football coaches 1-14. So I pulled the data.

And here it was:

1. Nick Saban A+ (99 out of 100)

2. Les Miles A+ (98 out of 100)

3. Steve Spurrier B+ (94 out of 100)

3. Mark Richt B+ (94 out of 100)

5. Gene Chizik B (92 out of 100)

6. Gary Pinkel C+ (85 out of 100)

7. Dan Mullen C+ (84 out of 100)

8. Kevin Sumlin C (82 out of 100)

9. Will Muschamp C- (80 out of 100)

10. Hugh Freeze D+ (76 out of 100)

11. James Franklin D+ (75 out of 100)

11. Derek Dooley D+ (75 out of 100)

11. John L. Smith D+ (75 out of 100)

14. Joker Phillips D+ (67 out of 100)

I think Chizik and Freeze are too high and Franklin is too low.

In fact, if you want to play a fun game that gets Auburn fans furiously angry -- would Gene Chizik have already lost his job if Auburn didn't buy Cam Newton?

Think about this for a minute, Auburn probably goes 8-5 or so without Cam, potentially worse. That means Chizik's record, at best, would be something like 24-15 with a losing record in the SEC. Meanwhile Saban would have won two national titles and be 3-0 against Chizik.

I mean, if he'd kept his job Chizik would be on the hottest seat in America right now, right?

Meaning, as I've said before, Cam Newton was the greatest $180k spent in the history of college football.

Talbott sends us this video of the lead stories on Nashville news, a Kentucky couple trades a baby for a truck, and Target is selling vibrators.

The video isn't spectacular quality, but the man on the street interviews are priceless.

Should we add an awkward local news video portion to the mailbag? Do you think you guys can find enough original content to upload?

Our girls' group is diverse... two Bammers, one LSU fan and an Aubie. In the midst of our Fifty Shades and "Magic Mike" influenced conversation, we started discussing our husbands' "Free Pass." Anyone alive who has ever seen "Friends" and has been married long enough to have this conversation knows exactly what I'm talking about. Two girls looked genuinely shocked. They had no idea. Two others responded immediately with our husbands' short lists (Charlize, Erin Andrews, Kate Upton, some chick from a local news station...that one hit a little close to home). These are in no particular order.

The iPhones came to life as texts began to fly. Husband #1 wussed out with, "You are my 'Free Pass!' " and believe it or not, that is not where my "Your gay" should have come into play.

Husband #2 hesitated, and though I thought it could be a possibility, I never thought it would actually happen. The screen lit up as did the face of the expectant wife. Who would this mystery "Free Pass" be? Who could possibly be more sexy, more alluring, more amazingly perfect than the person he decided to spend the rest of his life with?

One word cemented the absurdity that defines Bammers everywhere.

"Saban."

She giggled. She blushed. She texted back.

"Only if you promise to bring him home, baby."

I thought about diving across the table to wrestle the phone out of her tingling palms, but the Phi Mu alum across from me gave me a look that evoked visions of the UAB emergency room, and I decided it was best not to find a way to text him, in pure Bammer fashion,

"Your gay."

I am lucky to have you, Makers Mark, and OKTC to serve as a daily respite from the Bama Nation in which I live.

Honest question, what percentage of straight male Alabama fans would sleep with Saban in order to keep him from leaving for another job? Especially if no one else would ever know. Let's say that Saban just showed up at the teabagger's house in a stretch Escalade limo, knocked on the door, and said, "I'm leaving for Texas unless you let me have sex with you right now."

No one else would know.

He does it, right?

I mean, do you have any doubt?

Okay, now put that same question out there for Bama nation. Let's pretend Nick Saban is like a gay Santa Claus and he can show up at every Alabama fan's house in the same night, bending time in the process. Saban knocks on the door and puts the same demand on every "straight" Bama fan.

What percentage of men would sleep with him?

I think it's at least 15%. Here's my rationale: At least 10% of "straight" Bama fans are actually gay. This is the only real explanation for why the entire state is so obsessed with the gayness of others. I mean, if you aren't gay, why do you care so much if someone else is?

So they'd welcome the opportunity to sleep with a man without being gay. They're doing it for the team, man!

Toss in an additional 10% of hardcore Bama fans who have nothing else to live for, and I think you're getting about a 20% hit rate.

Too high or too low?

Josh @wingedfoot97

Odds that someone clandestinely takes a blowtorch to Paterno's statue?

I think it's 100% guaranteed that someone will attack the statue in the next year.

100%.

Now, it might not be an effective assault -- thanks to the troopers stationed by the statue for instance -- but I'd be shocked if someone didn't do something. I mean works of art get regularly attacked in museums and those works of art have never done anything to anyone. Lots of people are going to feel like Paterno is responsible for these sexual assaults.

So there's 100% chance of this happening.

The only way this could possibly be remedied is if the Paterno family stopped being such lying cover-up artists and issued a simple statement like this:

"We would like to profoundly apologize to all the victims that were not saved thanks to our father's silence. Our father is a good man, but he isn't a great man. He made a tremendous error, one that we would give anything to be able to remedy. At some point everyone thinks their father is perfect, it's clear ours was not. We will now donate the $5.5 million that Penn State gave our father to the victims of these heinous acts. We ask that you forgive our father and hope that we can all learn from his silence of the enormous costs of failing to act in the face of or suspicision of evil."

We wouldn't forget what Paterno did, but wouldn't everyone be willing to begin the process of moving on?

It's clear Paterno failed. I have sons -- and I am a son -- so I can respect the desire to protect a father's legacy. But at what point is defending that legacy in the face of clear evidence to the contrary counterproductive? Clearly, we've reached that point. The Paterno family has become the Baghdad Bob's of college football.

It's time to acknowledge responsibility and move the process forward.

On Thursday I discussed the Freeh report on NBC Sports Network. Here is that clip:

The thing about my hate mail is that the people who write my hate mail are so incredibly stupid it consistently boggles my mind. I've said it before, but the scary thing about the dumbest people in America is that they're so dumb they think you're the dumb one.

Think about this for a moment.

Truly dumb people are so dumb they can't even comprehend how stupid they are. Worse, they project their idiocy on to the people who are actually smart.

Think about how much better our country would be if we just had one of those "Men in Black" wands and we could wave it in front of the dumb people and provide a clear picture ot their actual stupidity.

After waving the wand we could say, "Okay, you will no longer have an opinion in all political matters. Go put a new Alabama or Kentucky sticker on your car."

Wouldn't the country be better off?

Mark P. writes:

"Hey Clay glad to see OKTC doing well - long time fan wrote to you a couple years ago about Bicurious making it to Canada. Question I have: what's with you becoming more "south" - specifically your overuse of the word 'y'all' in your columns as of the last couple of articles. Is this your ploy in ensuring your kids grow up in an SEC house and forge an allegiance with them instead Michigan? Anyways keep up the good work.

I'm like Malcolm X when it comes to keeping my kids from becoming Big Ten fans -- by any means necessary -- including the use of the word y'all.

More seriously, the goal of my writing on OKTC is to write pretty much the same as I talk. Since I write a ton of words every week, you've got to be able to read them fast. (Ron Zook may sleep fast, I write fast).

For instance, if people read the site and listen to 3HL or hear me on other radio shows across the South -- as lots of y'all do -- they actually hear my writing in my own voice. So if I say it out loud, I write it in the column.

That's why I'm no slave to grammar. And that's why I use y'all.

I am glad, however, that bicurious has made it to Canada.

@thepilote Tweets:

Who ya got in a fight: Kristen Saban or Tonya Harding? Bonus question: What would tv ratings be if Les Miles was referee?

Tonya Harding is 41 years old, crazy, and she's only 5"1. We don't know much about Kristen Saban except she's 21 and potentially crazy.

I'm going with Kristen Saban.

She's a generation younger, probably taller, and gave someone a concussion in a fight. Those are bona fides that Harding just doesn't have.

As for the TV ratings, they'd be massive. With or without Les Miles being included. The Kristen Saban news broke within 12 hours of the Freeh report. The lawsuit filing set an all-time traffic record for OKTC -- beating the teabagger, thanks Bama. Kristen Saban didn't just slaughter the Freeh report -- which is perhaps the greatest sports scandal story of all time -- y'all clicked on the Saban story 30x as often.

I see the data, people click in ridiculous numbers. For instance, hundreds of thousands of you read about this lawsuit on OKTC. Data is king.

I'm off to Birmingham this afternoon for SEC Media Days. So OKTC will keep you updated on the goings on down there as well. We'll also be broadcasting 3HL daily from 3-6 so if you want to tune in from somewhere else in the country you can stream us at www.1045thezone.com